Revelation: The Bride, the Beast & Babylon Page #2

Was utterly shattered

when Jesus rose from the dead.

"And her child was caught up

to god and his throne."

With the son of god

now physically beyond his reach,

The devil directed all of his fury

at the followers of Jesus,

The new Christians.

He did much of this

Through the cruel power

of imperial Rome.

"Now when the dragon saw

"That he had been cast

to the earth,

"He persecuted the woman

Who gave birth

to the male child."

Christianity was a struggling,

small persecuted minority

That didn't have official status

in the roman empire

And there were

a series of persecutions,

Some of which were quite severe.

One of the roles of religion

in the roman empire

Was to ensure

the well-Being of the state.

The idea was if the gods

were worshiped properly

Then they would favor the empire

And if they

were worshiped improperly

Then bad things

would happen to the empire

As a result of divine wrath.

They do not want

to sacrifice to the gods

And the gods at that point

include the emperor.

So it's easy

to consider these people

Religious scapegoats.

Basically,

if something's going wrong

Probably it's because

there are Christians around

Who are refusing to give the gods

their proper due.

Of course

you have to punish them

And punishment meant,

most of the time, death.

What people thought

Was that Christians

gathered together

Also seemed to make love

with their brothers and sisters.

Because there

were rumors about them

That they commit incest.

The Christians used to call

themselves "brother" and "sister"

And they used to eat

the flesh of Christ.

People heard, apparently,

That Christians

were eating children.

So when pagans heard about this

They thought the worse;

They assumed the worst.

Christians are progressively

stripped of their civil offices,

Their military offices.

Their books are confiscated.

Their churches are destroyed.

They're forbidden

to meet and so on,

All because there's an anxiety

That this is really undermining

the welfare of the empire.

As the early church suffered

Under this withering

persecution of Rome,

Their lives became a powerful

testimony for truth.

While the pagans lived

in constant superstitious fear,

These Christians

faced torture and death

With a supernatural peace.

Basically, what Nero did

was he fed them to the lions.

He had them tied to pillars,

put pitch on them,

And then he set them on fire

as human torches

So they could have the festivities

continue on into the night.

He had them stretched,

pulled into two,

Being killed by gladiators.

Just about every creative way

That you can dispose

of Christians.

When facing

the painful end of their lives

They often sang and rejoiced.

As thousands of Christians

Paid the ultimate price

for their faith,

Their dying prayers and blood

Essentially became seed

for the new church.

People are so enthralled

by how these Christians are dying

That immediately

the reaction is, "sign me up."

And so the Christians

spread like wildfire.

The more you killed them

The more they stood

for their faith.

It is true and I think

it has to be emphasized,

That the early church spreads

Despite the very concerted

attempts at repression

Of extremely autocratic

and powerful emperors

Who set themselves very firmly

against the Christians

And yet the early church survives.

Tertullian argues,

whenever something goes wrong,

Whenever there's a famine,

or whenever there an illness,

A pestilence

that sweeps through,

Everybody says,

"the Christians to the lion,"

And then he says snidely,

"As if so many

could be fed to so few."

And his point

is that you can't destroy us all.

During this time

of exponential growth,

Christians all across

the roman empire

Quite literally

went underground.

This labyrinth

of tunnels and chambers

Beneath the roman cities

Became known

as "the catacombs."

Now, the catacombs

are important to understand.

First, many people imagine

That there are caves

naturally under Rome

And the Christians

simply went into them.

The catacombs,

almost without exception,

Are not natural caves.

They were excavated

by the Christians.

And so the Christians made

a whole labyrinth underground.

Sometimes services

would be held there

In the very tombs

of the martyrs.

The second point is the very act

of burying your dead

Is hugely significant.

Christians believe

in a resurrection of the body.

Of course, that belief

has shifted and changed

Over the centuries,

but from all we understand,

Early Christians believed

that they would be resurrected

In that actual

bodily form, and therefore,

They chose to bury their dead,

not to cremate them.

Therefore, if you are seen

to be burying your dead,

Especially at times

When there are intense

waves of persecution,

You're more or less

saying to the police,

"Come and investigate me.

I may well be a Christian."

In ad 306, a new roman emperor

came into power

And things

began to rapidly change.

Constantine the great

was a capable military leader

And a shrewd politician.

So Constantine had to fight

a series of civil wars

In order to achieve

His political aim

of becoming emperor

And that's his own

personal and political aim

That's got nothing

to do with Christianity.

He goes down from Gaul-

Modern day France-

Where his power base was,

To confront

his rival Maxentius, in Italy.

Constantine moves down

from the north -

And you think of Italy,

there's this long stretch -

And he wins one battle

after another.

As he was marching with his army

He had a dream one night

where god came to him

And told him

"you will become a Christian

And put this sign on your shield

and you will conquer."

Shortly after that

he actually had a vision,

Which history tells us

was seen by his army

As well as

by Constantine, himself.

He looked up to the sun

and he saw a cross of light above it

And the Greek works

"en toutu nika":
By this, conquer.

The story

that he had had this dream

Does appear

at a relatively early stage.

It's described by Eusebius.

There are different sources.

There are different versions,

But it does seem

that Constantine does say,

"I've had this divine encounter

"And an angel has told me

That in the sign of the cross

I will conquer."

Constantine commanded his troops

To adorn their shields

with the Christian symbol.

His opponent then

moves out of the city

To face the oncoming

Constantine with his army,

Which has now

been trained quite a bit

Because they've already won

several victories

On the way down from the north,

From Milan down.

His opponent moves across

the river at the Milvian bridge,

Has Constantine

and his army in front of him,

The river

and the city behind him;

Not a great situation to be in.

If you do not beat

the oncoming army,

You have nowhere to retreat.

So he loses.

So for Constantine, who is

certainly not yet a Christian,

This is a powerful thing

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